ICHEC Software
Information about software packages installed on the ICHEC systems.
ABAQUS
Versions Installed
Stokes: 6.8-1 / 6.9-1 / 6.10-2 / 6.11-1
Stoney: 6.8-1 / 6.9-1 / 6.10-2
Description
The ABAQUS suite of software for finite element analysis (FEA) is known for its high performance, quality and ability to solve more kinds of challenging simulations than any other software. The ABAQUS suite consists of three core products - ABAQUS/Standard, ABAQUS/Explicit and ABAQUS/CAE. Each of these packages offers additional optional modules that address specialized capabilities some customers may need.
ABAQUS/Standard®, provides ABAQUS analysis technology to solve traditional implicit finite element analyses, such as static, dynamics, thermal, all powered with the widest range of contact and nonlinear material options. ABAQUS/Standard also has optional add-on and interface products with address design sensitivity analysis, offshore engineering, and integration with third party software, e.g., plastic injection molding analysis.
ABAQUS/Explicit®, provides ABAQUS analysis technology focused on transient dynamics and quasi-static analyses using an explicit approach appropriate in many applications such as drop test, crushing and many manufacturing processes.
ABAQUS/CAE®, provides a complete modeling and visualization environment for ABAQUS analysis products. With direct access to CAD models, advanced meshing and visualization, and with an exclusive view towards ABAQUS analysis products, ABAQUS/CAE is the modeling environment of choice for many ABAQUS users.
License
Our license specifically permits us to allow other academic institutions to access our ABAQUS license, provided that the following two conditions are met:
- users must be ABAQUS license holders in their own right; and
- users must sign a sublicense agreement related to the use of ABAQUS on your supercomputer.
A hardcopy of the sub-license agreement can obtained by contacting the Helpdesk. Once you have signed and returned this agreement to ICHEC, your username will be added to the UNIX group "abaqus" thus allowing you to access this package.
Our license includes 168 tokens, where tokens are consumed at the rate of int(5 x N0.422) tokens per instance, where N is the number of CPUs for each job. The license token consumption as a function of processor cores for a job is plotted below:
Benchmarks
N/A.
Job Submission Example
Abaqus is installed under /ichec/packages/abaqus and is accessible via environment modules with the most recent being the default version:
Abaqus jobs must be submitted using the PBS queueing system. The following is an example PBS script for running an Abaqus job on 24 cores of the Stokes system for a maximum runtime of 30 hours:
#PBS -l nodes=2:ppn=12
#
#For Stoney, you must use ppn=8
#e.g. for a 16-core job:
##PBS -l nodes=2:ppn=8
#
#PBS -l walltime=30:00:00
#PBS -N MyJobName
#PBS -A MyProjectName
#Load the Abaqus module
module load abaqus
cd $PBS_O_WORKDIR
abaqus job=MyAbaqusJob inp=MyAbaqusJob.inp cpus=24 interactive;
Assuming that this PBS script is saved as abaqus.pbs, the job can be submitted to the queue by running the following command in the same directory:
Note on User Defined Functions
Most subroutines contained within Abaqus are thread-safe, meaning they can be called during a parallel Abaqus simulation without the risk of producing unwarranted results. If a user defined function or elelement is being used in parallel, it does not need to contain explicit MPI function calls but it does need to be thread-safe. Meaning that data is not unknowingly overwritten by different processes.
Restarting an interrupted Abaqus analysis
It is sometimes necessary to restart an Abaqus analysis on ICHEC systems if, for example, the analysis being run requires a greater walltime than allowed by the queueing policy on the system. There is no single procedure for restarting an Abaqus analysis because the restart procedure typically depends on the type of analysis being conducted. The procedure described in this section is only for continuing a system-interrupted analysis.
To continue an interrupted analysis, the analysis to be continued, myJob in this example, should have been configured to write restart files at a specified frequency before being run. This can be configured in Abaqus/CAE under Output->Restart Requests in the Step module. After the analysis myJob has been interrupted by the system, it may be continued as follows:
Abaqus/Standard:
To continue an interrupted Abaqus/Standard analysis, a new analysis (myJob_restart for example) should be created in which the only steps defined are those subsequent to the step from which the analysis is being continued. In addition, the new analysis should be configured to read restart data from the previous analysis. In Abaqus/CAE, this can be configured by selecting Model->Edit Attributes->
The job can then be submitted using a PBS script as described in the previous section, in which the analysis to be restarted is specified by supplying the oldjob= option to the abaqus command in the PBS script, e.g.:
Abaqus/Explicit:
To continue an Abaqus/Explicit analysis, a new analysis does not need to be created. Instead, the analysis can be restarted by supplying the recover option to the abaqus command in the PBS script, e.g.:
Checking License Availability in PBS
On Stokes and Stoney users can specify the number of tokens required per job so that jobs will only be started if there are enough tokens available. This can be done by including the following lines in the PBS script. Note that this is only effective if you correctly calculate and specify your token requirements.
Where M = int(5 x N0.422), giving M = 12 tokens for 8 cores, 16 for 16 cores, 21 for 32 cores and 28 for 64 cores. For a 32 CPU job:
Further information can be obtained at www.simulia.com.